


The Man I Used To Be

by Drogna



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Rip Week 2019, Rip re-write, RipFic, season 3 re-write, time travel is unfair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-18 15:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drogna/pseuds/Drogna
Summary: Rip gets caught up in the same time storm that hits the Waverider and instead of leaving to found the Time Bureau things take a very different course. However, before he can get to work he has to deal with the rather perplexing problem of his past selves.





	1. This isn't Aruba

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first episode of a Season 3 Rip-centric re-write. Fair warning, this may be the only part I ever write, but we'll see how it goes.

"Time travel is real, and so are its consequences. In order to save reality itself, we had to break history. Now, because of our actions, the timeline is in peril, and our job is to repair it before the anachronisms we created shatter existence. We don’t call ourselves heroes, but my team are certainly Legends."

\- Rip Hunter

 

* * *

 

 

Rip steered the jumpship out into the green waves of the timestream and away from the Waverider. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was going, but he did know that he couldn’t stay on the ship right now, not after everything that had happened with Thawne and the so called “Legion of Doom”. He needed a moment to regroup from what his brain-washed alter ego had done, and that was before he considered the fact that he’d kissed Gideon. It seemed ridiculous that he might have feelings for his AI, something that was absolutely taboo amongst Time Masters, and yet he did.

He had so much to process and the Waverider had begun to feel more like a prison than his home. He didn’t think the white lie that he’d told Sara about no longer being needed was so terrible, or far from the truth. He didn’t feel he had a purpose at the moment. The Waverider would be safe with the Legends for a little while, at least until he got his head together.

The jumpship bucked beneath him, and he frowned. This was a known route, one he was used to flying. He’d picked it because he’d known his mind would be elsewhere. The jumpship shook again, and now all of his attention was on the controls. These readings just couldn’t be right, because if these readings _were_ right, that would mean…

It would mean that time was crumbling at the edges.

He didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity and doubt anymore. He had work to do, and the more scans he could do as he travelled the better. He turned the jumpship around, aiming to head back to the Waverider, but the navigation data itself now appeared to be corrupted.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured to himself, quickly compensating for the conditions.

Where had the Legends said that they planned to go? Ah, yes, Mick’s suggestion of Aruba. Rip input the new course, but instead found the jumpship pulled in a different direction as a green whirlpool appeared.

“Bollocks! Gid…” he started before remembering that his AI wasn’t here to analyse the time anomaly for him. A green light flashed across the clouds in front of him, and briefly it illuminated a series of cracks that appeared to run through out the firmament of the time stream.

“Bloody bollocking buggering hell!” he exclaimed and moments later he was worried that those would be his last words as the green whirlpool sucked in the tiny jumpship, engulfing the craft in a flash of green light that rendered the occupant instantly unconscious.

***

The Waverider was not in good shape. It had crashed hard, smashing through buildings and landing with enough force to carve a deep furrow into the asphalt of the road. Sara looked around the bridge, checking that everyone was in decent shape.

“Is everyone okay?” she asked, and received groans and nods to indicate that they were as good as could be expected after that landing.

Jax was shaking off some dust that had fallen from the ceiling, brushing it out of his short, black hair. Martin was cautiously stretching out his limbs and raising the restraining bar on his chair. Mick was already on his feet, so clearly fine. Amaya and Nate were making eyes at each other, checking the other over as their first priority. Ray looked more interested in what was going on outside the Waverider, so business as usual there too.

“This ain't Aruba,” said Mick, stating the obvious.

“No,” confirmed Gideon. “This is Los Angeles, 2017.”

“Oh, boy,” said Ray, his voice wavering and his eyes fixed on the scene visible from the cockpit.

“Guys, I think we broke time,” said Sara, standing to get a better view of what was going on outside.

“Yeah,” said Jax, standing beside her, wide eyed. “Looks like we did.”

Outside were twisted buildings, many not even supposed to be in Los Angeles, like Big Ben and something that resembled a mangled Petronas tower. And then there were the dinosaurs. There were a lot of them, and whilst Sara didn’t know much about dinosaurs beyond what was in Jurassic Park, these ones looked dangerous.

“We broke the cardinal rule of time travel,” said Martin. “We crossed our own timeline. Of course there are consequences!”

“Wow, it’s a T-Rex!” said Ray, with more enthusiasm than Sara felt was appropriate.

“Great,” said Sara, “how the hell do we fix this?” She looked around at the team, who all looked equal parts shocked and baffled.

“I’m not sure we can…” said Ray. “This is all of time that we’re talking about.”

“Indeed, this isn’t like a broken mug that can glued back together,” said Martin. “Time is a fundamental part of the fabric of the universe.”

As Martin was about to expand on his analogy further, Sara watched a new portal open in the sky and then a small ship was thrown out, with the same force that the Waverider her been. The problem was that this ship wasn’t as robust as the Waverider.

“Is that…?” asked Nate.

“The jumpship,” finished Jax, with a look of horror on his face. “That’s got to be Rip.”

“Indeed, Mr Jackson, that is the Waverider’s jumpship,” said Gideon.

The Legends could do nothing but watch as the jumpship hit a building, bounced away and then smashed into the highway only a block or two away. It appeared to be badly damaged and Sara doubted very much that it would ever fly again. Then, as she watched, she saw a strange green glow wash over it and disappear. Perhaps it had just been a trick of the light.

“Gideon, can you contact the jumpship?” asked Sara.

“There is no answer, Captain Lance,” said Gideon.

“He’s probably hurt, he could even be unconscious,” said Amaya, and Sara noted that she didn’t add the third reason for why Rip might not be answering his com.

“We need to go get him,” said Jax.

“Need I remind you that there are _dinosaurs_ out there, Jefferson,” said Martin, with desperation.

“Dinosaurs are no match for Firestorm, Grey, but Rip won’t stand a chance out there on his own,” replied Jax.

“You would still have to get him back to the ship,” said Amaya. “You can’t go alone either.”

“Right,” said Nate, “Amaya can speak dinosaur.”

“Really?” asked Ray.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” said Nate, proudly.

“Stop!” said Sara. “We’ve got more than one problem. Jax, I need you here working on the Waverider. We have to know how bad the damage is and if it’s fixable. Ray and Martin can help you. Nate, Amaya, Mick, you’re with me. Tool up, we need to go rescue Rip.”

“Actually, I know a lot about dinosaurs…” Ray started, and then trailed off at Sara’s unimpressed look, “but sure, probably you have enough people on the rescue mission.”

“We’re going to need the ship back in one piece,” said Sara, “and if you have any spare brain power left, maybe you could start thinking about what exactly is going on here and how to start putting it right. There has to be a way to undo this.”

“I wish I had your optimism,” said Martin, but then he added. “Come along, Jefferson. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

The three men filed off the bridge and away to examine the damage. Mick was already picking up his heat gun and checking it over for damage, probably relishing the idea of roasting dinosaurs. Sara sighed, this was an entirely new level of disaster for them to deal with. All they could do was tackle one problem at a time, and the first of those was to get the team back together.

“Saddle up, let’s go wrangle some dinos,” she said, and marched off the bridge with her rescue team on her heels.

***

The rescue party stepped out into the sunshine of downtown Los Angeles in 2017.

“Okay, now remember, no killing,” said Sara, and got nods of agreement from Nate and Amaya. Mick grunted, but she supposed that was the best she was going to get from the pyromaniac.

Amaya had pointed out that they had absolutely no idea what would happen if they started killing dinosaurs that belonged in a different time period, so non-lethal force was their only option. She had collected one of the largest guns from Rip’s armoury, but Sara noted that it was actually just a very substantial stunner. It was about the size of an elephant rifle and she made a mental note to ask why Rip had needed something that size.

Nate was relying on his ability to steel up and was also carrying the first aid kit rucksack on his back. Mick didn’t seem to think that he needed anything more than his flame thrower, she hoped he was right there and was only planning on using it to frighten the creatures. Sara had followed Amaya’s lead and she hefted another stun gun over her shoulder as they hiked across the broken tarmac.

The streets were infested with animals from the Cretaceous period. The smaller dinosaurs were scared of the humans and ran away from them as they made slow progress towards the jumpship. Some of the larger members of the group were occupied eating their smaller brethren but not all of them. Sara caught glimpses of humans running away, and she heard the occasional scream in the distance. She wished that she could do more, but right now they needed the man on the jumpship. He might be the only person who knew how they could fix this.

Amaya talked two tyrannosauruses into walking away, her eyes glowing yellow as she silently communed with the creatures, one hand on her totem. Both times, Nate looked at her with increasing pride and maybe a touch of desire. Sara kind of agreed that Amaya was indeed especially hot at those moments, so she couldn’t really blame him. However, using the totem seemed to tire Amaya and when the third dinosaur came at them from behind a collapsed building she couldn’t make the connection that she had with the other two. She stumbled backwards.

“It’s… it’s not working. This one… it’s so angry. It doesn’t like it here, it isn’t its territory,” said Amaya.

Nate caught her as her foot was snagged in the rubble and she nearly fell. The T-Rex was looming over both of them and it gave an ear-splitting roar. Amaya was trying to get the gun around, ready to stun it, but the strap was trapped beneath her and she couldn’t get it into position to fire. Instead, Sara came at it from the side while it was distracted and zapped it in the head just as its jaws were descending. Nate pulled Amaya out of the way in time to stop her being squashed by the unconscious animal.

“Nice work, boss,” said Mick, who was keeping a few more curious carnivores away with a burst from his heat gun. They decided that they didn’t want to tackle this strange fire breathing person and ran for it.

Sara breathed out a relieved huff of air that everyone was okay.

“Come on, not much further,” she said.

They climbed over a mangled SUV that blocked the road and looked as if something had stomped across it, and on the other side was the Waverider’s jumpship. It lay at an angle amongst a collection of concrete rubble, broken tarmac and the remains of a station wagon that had smashed into the building on the corner of the block. It appeared to be in even worse shape than she’d thought now that they were up close. The windshield was so badly smashed that it was impossible to see inside through the crazed glass, although it had stayed in place and wasn’t caved in.

“It’ll be a miracle if he survived,” said Nate, quietly.

“Mick, you’re on look out duty. Don’t let anything with teeth get too close,” Sara said, and then turned her attention to the jumpship while Mick took up a sentry position on top of the mound of rubble that the jumpship had ploughed up.

Nate, Amaya and Sara moved around to the hatch. Sara could immediately see that the door controls had been smashed by the impact.

“Nate, do you think you can steel up and open the door?”

“Sure, give me a moment,” Nate nodded and transformed into the chrome finish version of himself.

He dug his hands into the metal beside the hatch and wrenched. The hatch peeled back to reveal the interior of the jumpship, and Sara peered inside.

“Rip?” she asked, desperately hoping for an answer or at the very least a groan to indicate life, but she received nothing.

The interior was a mess. There were pieces of broken and bent metal strewn everywhere, with sunlight filtering through the broken glass in weird refracted patterns that didn’t provide enough light to properly see with. She climbed inside and pushed one of the crash couches that had come away from its moorings out of the way. The ceiling cladding had come down in several places and a bundle of wires sparked and fizzed. She picked her way around that very cautiously, and squeezed past a structural beam that had once been part of the roof and now blocked the way to the front of the jumpship. Amaya followed her equally carefully, looking around at the devastation with concern.

Sara saw the figure slumped forwards over the controls as she neared the front of the jumpship, the brown duster covering his back the only identifying detail that she could really see, but more metal had fallen around him obscuring his right side. She moved closer, watching her footing on the uneven floor.

“Rip?” she asked again, but there was still no sign of life.

The jumpship seemed to shift a little, and a crackle of green light appeared to run out from the unresponsive man at the controls. For just a moment his hair seemed to be different, and his clothes, but Sara blinked and it wasn’t there anymore. She would have sworn that for just a second Rip had been wearing a navy blue suit and had close cropped hair, but this had already been a long day and perhaps the smoke from the toasted wiring was affecting her vision.

She moved in to check for a pulse and found one, it was weak but there.

“Thank god,” she murmured. “I found him!” she shouted back. “He’s alive!”

Then she began checking him over for injuries, not moving him until she’d given him a thorough assessment. She found a large cut on his head, which probably explained why he was unresponsive and might well lead to a nasty concussion. It looked like something had slammed into his arm and that was either a dislocated shoulder or a break, she’d need Gideon to assess it. She felt down his back, and then sides. Her heart sank as she felt something damp and she withdrew her hand to see that it was covered in blood. She investigated further, moving the coat to discover that one of the arms of the pilot’s chair had been driven into his side, leaving a deep wound.

She swore. Rip was slowly bleeding to death because the couch that had been supposed to keep him safe had instead injured him. Amaya moved up beside her.

“Nate, we’re going to need the first aid kit. Tread carefully when you come in,” said Sara.

“Where is he injured?” asked Amaya, as she managed to make it around to Rip’s other side.

“He hit his head, probably when he crashed, has a suspected broken shoulder, but the real problem is the metal chair arm that’s embedded itself in his right side like a dagger,” said Sara. “I’m not sure how we move him, and then we still have to get him back to the Waverider.”

Amaya crouched down and examined the wound. “He’s bleeding a lot. I need bandages, we have to keep pressure on this.”

Nate appeared and handed Sara the first aid kit, with a concerned look at Rip. She cleared a space on the dash and opened the kit, handing Amaya a wad of bandages and then rifling through the drugs.

“Gideon, we found Rip, but he’s not in good shape. He’s bleeding and got a suspected concussion, maybe a broken arm or it could be dislocated. We’re applying pressure to the wound, but what can I give him to stop the bleeding or help while we move him?”

“In the first aid kit you will find a vial labelled with a red sticker. The injector is pre-set to deliver the correct dose. The one with the blue sticker is a painkiller and I would also suggest you dose the Captain with that too. He can be quite grumpy when he is in pain. Make sure you put on the cervical collar before moving him. Then please return him to the Waverider as soon as possible and I will do the rest,” said Gideon.

“Got it,” said Sara, and pulled out the required vials and injectors, pressing first one to Rip’s skin and then the other. She got out the brace and snapped it around Rip’s neck.

Rip groaned, which was the first noise he’d made since they’d arrived. Sara and Nate gently moved him to upright and then helped him to lean back in his chair. His face was already beginning to bruise around his head wound, but his skin was pale.

“Rip? Are you in there?” asked Sara.

His eyes flickered open and he frowned. “Sara… Dr Heywood…why are there two, no, three of you?” His voice was rough and he sounded confused.

“Because you hit your head and lost a lot of blood, Rip. Just stay with us, okay? We’re taking you back to the Waverider,” said Sara.

He tried to reach up a hand to grab her jumper, and succeeded weakly.

“We broke… we broke time, Sara,” he said.

“I know, Rip, and we’ll talk about that once you’re not trapped in a crashed jumpship,” said Sara. “And you can say “I told you so” as much as you like.”

“That… will not be necessary,” breathed Rip, painfully. “Hopefully I’m more… mature than that.”

“Where do you hurt?” asked Sara.

“I’d guess “everywhere” is not the answer you’re looking for,” replied Rip.

Rip winced as Amaya finished off her bandaging, he looked like he wanted to say more but couldn’t summon up the energy or perhaps he was in too much pain. That in itself was worrying since he’d already been given a strong painkiller.

“That’s the best I can do for now. He needs the medbay,” said Amaya, her fingers were stained with his blood too now.

There was a shout from Mick, who had poked his head inside the jumpship. “The Jurassic Park extras are circling back. We need to move, now!”

“Is he okay to be moved?” asked Nate.

“We’ve got no choice,” said Sara.

“Grab… the sensor logs,” murmured Rip. “We’ll… need them.”

“I’ll do it,” said Sara. “Mick, get in here. You need to help lift Rip out of here.”

“I can walk,” said Rip, and made a rather pitiful attempt to get up. He let out a frustrated groan.

“Nice try, buddy,” said Nate, “but I think you’d better let us take the weight on this one.”

Mick was less careful about where he trod, and pushed things out of the way, causing the jumpship to shake. It was probably on its last legs, so Sara guessed that didn’t matter. However, as Mick’s gun knocked into a piece of the structure of the jumpship, another burst of green energy seemed to wash over the jumpship. This time all four of the rescue party saw Rip’s clothes change and he was now wearing a brown outfit, much more like a uniform than his usual attire. His hair was neatly combed, and he looked younger, much younger, probably in his late teens.

“What the…?” began Mick.

Rip was frowning and looking around at his surroundings as if things were new to him, but he was quite heavily drugged and experiencing considerable blood loss. Sara wouldn’t have been surprised if things didn’t really make sense right now.

“Who are you?” he asked, barely audible.

Then he was back to his previous appearance and blinking groggily at them. His hair was once again a dishevelled mess, looking much more like someone who had been in a horrible crash, and his clothes were the ones that Sara had seen him leave the Waverider in.

“What the hell was that?” asked Nate. The jumpship shook and there was a roar from outside, which definitely reminded everyone that there wasn’t time to stand around chatting.

“No idea,” said Sara, “but I’d rather investigate back on the Waverider.” She went to where she knew the jumpship’s black box was kept, and pulled it roughly from its housing.

“Agreed,” said Amaya. “Mick, help me lift him. Nate, make sure the path is clear.”

The three worked together. Mick lifted Rip from his seat, not giving their former Captain any warning. Rip still let out a pained shout that he rapidly bit down on, trying not to show that he was in what had to be excruciating pain. Sara was wondering if he’d broken a couple of ribs in addition to everything else. Amaya maintained pressure on the wound despite Rip’s discomfort, and Nate moved dangling cables and metal supports out the way so that none of them were electrocuted as they left the jumpship. Rip passed out again at some point during the process, which was probably for the best.

They stepped out of the jumpship just as a giant dinosaur jumped up on an increasingly wrecked jumpship.

Nate stared for a second. “Ray is going to be so pissed that he missed this. That’s got to be a Gigantosaurus.”

“Nate! Not now,” said Sara, and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him along as the rescue party ran for their lives.

Sara pulled her gun around to her front, stopped for just long enough to aim and fired. Given their luck to date, it was predictable that nothing happened, apart from perhaps a small slowing in the speed of the creature behind them. She fired again and again, until after five shots, the Gigantosaurus finally hit the ground, and let out a huge snort. Unfortunately, as Sara checked the battery on her gun, she found it almost depleted. These things didn’t have much juice in them, and if they came across another beast that size then they would be in trouble.

Amaya had her hands full stopping Rip from bleeding out. Nate was back in steel mode, but Sara would rather none of the dinosaurs got close enough for him to be able to fight them. Suddenly, the Waverider’s guns opened fire, not hitting any of the dinosaurs, but certainly scaring them away from the group that were fleeing back to the safety of the ship.

“Sorry for the delay, Captain,” said Ray. “Hope you don’t mind us prioritising the weapons over the rest of the ship. Gideon thought you could use some help.”

Sara could have laughed. They had a clear path back to the Waverider now.

“Nice work, Ray. We’ll be back in a few moments. Have the medbay ready for Rip.”

“You’ve got it,” said Ray, and signed off.

They dashed back up the ramp and into the cargo bay, the door shutting behind them with a reassuring clank of bolts locking down.

***

Rip had only been tangentially aware of everything that had happened after they’d extracted him from the jumpship. He hadn’t been completely insensible, but he was in a sufficient stupor that it wasn’t until he was placed on a couch in medbay that he began to understand where he was once more.

“Get the cuff on him,” someone was saying. His coat and jacket had been removed and his shirt opened.

“He’s lost a lot of blood. Gideon…”

“I am already administering blood replacement factors,” replied his AI. “I am also performing all the usual scans.”

She sounded annoyed, perhaps because she knew exactly what to do without instruction. She had extensive medical programs.

His eyes flickered open in time to see Gideon’s blue lights playing across his aching body. He let out an entirely involuntary groan, at least partly because he’d made the mistake of trying to move his right arm, which currently hurt like hell. A different coloured light sealed the wound on his right side, and he took in a sharp breath as the stinging sensation.

“Gideon,” he said, with utter relief. “How bad?”

“You are close to hypovolaemic shock, have one broken rib, a facture of you right humerus, a nasty concussion, and sharp force trauma to you right abdomen and underlying organs. Healing your injuries will take several hours.”

“Fantastic,” he said, and whilst the tone was sarcastic, he was actually thinking that a rest might be quite good.

He was very tired, despite his earlier unconsciousness. He then made another mistake by trying to look around himself, but the collar around his neck was inhibiting his ability to move his head and turning just pulled on his healing injuries.

“Rip, you need to stay still,” said Ray, although it hadn’t been him who’d spoken before. He could see the inventor in his right peripheral vision, and Martin Stein to his right.

“Unless I have a broken neck, I’d appreciate it if someone would take off this ridiculous neck brace,” he spat.

Gideon had not mentioned that there was any need for it, so it seemed that everyone was just being overly cautious.

“A little patience, Captain,” said Martin, as he came over and removed the offending item. “Better?”

“Much, thank you,” said Rip, now able to turn his head even if there was pain when he did it. “Although I feel… rather remote.”

“Gideon has you on some strong painkillers while she mends your broken bones. I’ll get you a sling for your arm,” said Ray, apologetically, moving away to one of the cupboards. “That was quite the crash. You were lucky we were close enough to help.”

Rip shook his head. “It wasn’t luck, Dr Palmer. I was looking for you. I hadn’t gone very far from the Waverider before I detected that there was a problem and decided to try to return to the ship. Unfortunately, we were both swept up in a time storm that ejected us at this point.”

“Knew you couldn’t stay away long,” said Sara, striding into the room, with Nate and Amaya behind her. “How’s he doing, Gideon?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” said Rip, crossly, but Sara seemed to know who she would get a straight answer from.

“Captain Hunter’s condition is already improving. I have sealed the abdominal wound and am proceeding to mend the internal injuries, broken rib and humerus. Once that is complete, the Captain will require rest and a proper meal to fully replace the blood that he has lost and regain his strength.”

“I’ve had far worse,” said Rip.

“If you hadn’t left the ship then I would have been able to protect you,” added Gideon.

“Well I’m back now, aren’t I?”

“You should never have left in the first place,” replied Gideon, indignantly.

“Can we have this argument later?” asked Rip. “I think there are rather more important things to discuss. Like the widening cracks in the corridor of time! I should be up and working out how we fix this.”

He tried to push himself up from the medbay couch, but his head pounded and the room spun, and three pairs of hands prevented him from rising.

“No, you don’t,” said Sara.

“Gideon still needs to finish healing you,” said Ray, simultaneously.

“Not advisable, Captain Hunter,” Martin joined in.

Rip suppressed another groan, tried to pretend that he wasn’t as dizzy as he felt, and gave up the struggle. Concussions really were an annoying and painful nuisance.

“Don’t be an idiot, Rip. You lost a lot of blood and hit your head hard. If we hadn’t been close, you might have died,” said Sara. “And there was a weird moment in the jumpship when you… weren’t yourself. Twice in fact.”

“Sara…” began Rip.

“Don’t!” said Sara, a hand raised in a stop gesture, “you’re staying here until Gideon says you can leave.”

“We don’t have time,” sighed Rip. “Literally. We. Do. Not. Have. Time. Because time is broken!”

“We know, Rip! We know! We just fought through a herd of dinosaurs to get to you! LA looks like Jurassic Park!” Sara put her hands to her forehead in frustration.

There was silence for a moment, and grim looks were exchanged.

“There has to be something that we can do,” said Amaya, finally.

“That depends on how bad the situation is,” Rip replied, trying unsuccessfully to shift into a more comfortable position. “This is not the first time in the history of time travel that this has happened, and there are ways of fixing the underlying issue, but we need the data I collected with the jumpship’s sensors and whatever the Waverider was able to get before it was ejected from the time stream. There will also be a lot of clearing up to be done…”

“I grabbed the blackbox from the jumpship like you asked,” said Sara. “That sounds like something we should go through. Ray and Nate can get started while Martin finishes off getting Rip treated.”

 Ray smiled at that, and high-fived Nate.

“I’ve been helping Martin and Jax to clear out one of the cargo bays to be a new time lab. This’ll be a perfect christening. We’ll let you know as soon as we have anything,” said Ray, handing Martin the sling he’d pulled from the cupboard.

“Yeah, you just rest here, Rip, and we’ll go work,” said Nate, with a smile and thumb towards the door, as Ray practically dragged him away.

Rip let Martin fit the sling and his headache seemed to get suddenly worse. He squeezed his eyes shut, and a low moan escaped his lips.

“Rip?” asked Sara.

“Are you okay?” asked Amaya.

There was sudden beeping from the medical monitor and Rip saw a green light wash over his vision, and then he was drifting in what looked like it was the timestream itself. If he was really here, then he should be dead. The temporal energy would kill him, or he’d die from lack of oxygen, but he shouldn’t be here without a timeship to keep him in the timestream. He should be thrown out into the nearest point in history as something that didn’t belong, but he seemed to just be hanging, unprotected.

He looked around himself. It was much easier to see the cracks from here, but it was also easy to see that there appeared to be further damage being done. The cracks were slowly growing, not quickly, but visibly. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was someone else here with him, or maybe some _thing_. A malevolent presence, a creature, or perhaps even creatures. The rats in the walls of time.

His Time Master tutors had always described the timestream as a corridor to be traversed between times, but perhaps there was more to it than that. A corridor could link many places, many times, or maybe even many realms.

There was peculiar, sickly yellow wave of light moving around the edges of his vision, and then laughter. It was deep and mocking.

“Who’s there?” he shouted.

“This is not your realm,” replied the same mocking voice.

The yellow energy turned into a ball and hit Rip squarely in the chest. He found himself once more surrounded by urgently beeping monitors and the worried faces of the Legends.

“What just happened?” he asked, rather dazed by the experience.

Looks were exchanged, and then finally Sara opened her mouth to speak.

“There was a green light and suddenly you were a teenager, maybe fourteen or fifteen,” said Sara. “You didn’t know us, it was like you were actually younger.”

Rip frowned. “No, I was gone, floating in the timestream.”

His head really hurt and he couldn’t concentrate. This somehow reminded him of something, but he couldn’t remember what with this thumping in his head.

“Gideon, did you detect anything?” asked Rip, through gritted teeth.

“There was a spike in temporal radiation at the moment your younger self appeared,” said Gideon.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” murmured Rip, “the Waverider is shielded, so is the jumpship.”

The headache was building as he spoke, and unconsciousness claimed him with a quiet exhalation of breath and the sound of people calling his name.

***


	2. I'm Not Rip Hunter

“Gideon? What’s going on?” asked Sara, checking on the reading on the medical monitor even though she barely understood them.

“Captain Hunter is experiencing neural anomalies. I have no comparison data for this phenomenon,” said Gideon.

“What does “neural anomalies” mean?” asked Amaya.

“He is experiencing changes in his brain waves, neural pathways and chemistry,” said Gideon, straightforward in her tone. “However, they are now returning to normal.”

“He also appears to be in considerable pain,” said Martin, desperately going through the data that was on the screen. “And Gideon was right, this is the same signature as the energy in the timestream, and it came from Captain Hunter just as he…changed.” He waved a hand to indicate Rip.

“He was a teenager! And that wasn’t the first time he’s de-aged in front of us. It happened in the jumpship too,” said Sara. “Is that going to happen again?”

“I don’t understand these readings, so I can’t tell you that,” said Martin. “All I can say is that the amount of temporal radiation appears to be reducing again.”

Sara let out a breath, looking upwards for just a second in despair. Rip was their time travel expert, and he was currently unconscious. They really needed him awake and working on this problem, because Sara was feeling out of her depth. There was just too much going on, and for a moment she irrationally felt annoyed at him. But she was also concerned for her friend, and very worried that this was something that could kill him.

“Hopefully that means that whatever this was, it’s done. Keep an eye on him, I need to go and see how Jax is doing with the ship repairs. At least we can get the ship back up and running, and one thing can go right around here,” said Sara. “Let me know the moment anything changes.”

“I’ll keep you informed,” said Martin.

“Amaya, I need you to check in on Ray and Nate,” said Sara. “With Rip out of action, they’re our best hope for sorting this mess out.”

Amaya nodded, and headed down to the new time lab. Sara went off to find Jax.

As she approached the engine room she could hear arguing.

“No, that’s not how you reset the temporal flux chamber! The manual says it’s right to left,” shouted Jax.

“I’m telling you that the manual’s wrong,” said Mick.

Sara picked up the pace and entered the room to see Jax holding one of the tools that he and Rip used to tune up the Waverider’s engines. He was brandishing it like a weapon and Mick was standing there as if he was trying to get Jax to move.

“What the hell is going on down here?” asked Sara, already feeling her anger build.

“The kid won’t listen to reason,” said Mick, gruffly.

“Look, Rip put me in charge of the engines. It’s my call. Chronos’ ship wasn’t anything like the Waverider…”

“Enough,” said Sara. “Just tell me how long before the Waverider can fly again?”

“We came down hard,” said Jax. “The atrial junction’s bent, the time drive’s losing coolant from somewhere, the left stabiliser’s got a weird overheat warning that I can’t trace, and that’s before you get down to all the stuff that Gideon’s tackling with the self-repair systems. We could do with backing out of this hole we made, just so that I can make sure there’s no surprises waiting for us before we lift off.”

He brought a diagnostic pad over to Sara and showed her the issues. A lot of the Waverider’s systems were showing as red or yellow, and the hull had substantial portions of damage.

“Twenty-four hours,” said Mick, actually answering the question that Sara had asked. “If the kid doesn’t screw anything up.”

Jax rolled his eyes. “I know what I’m doing. Although I could really use Rip’s help once he’s up and about. How’s he doing?”

“Not great,” said Sara. “He got a hit of temporal radiation, or at least that’s what Martin seems to think, and it’s caused a few problems. Like him transforming into his teenage self randomly.”

“Huh,” said Mick, and took a swig from a beer bottle which he’d perched on the side.

“Rip turned into a teenager?” asked Jax. “I think I’ve got this time travel thing down and then…” he shrugged.

“I know,” said Sara. “Keep going at the repairs. We need to be able to move as soon as we’ve got a plan. I don’t think those dinosaurs are doing anything good for the neighbourhood. And Mick, Jax is in charge down here. Do what he says or I’ll tell Gideon to stop fabricating you beer.”

Mick looked unimpressed. “Fine, see if I care. I’ll be fixing the stabilisers.”

He stalked off with a wrench in one hand and a beer in the other.

Jax sighed and shook his head. “He actually knows a lot about time ship mechanics, but Chronos’s ship was a lot smaller than the Waverider. I’m not sure he didn’t lose some of it when he stopped being Chronos too, but try telling him that.”

Sara gave Jax a squeeze on the shoulder. “You’re doing a good job, Jax, and I know it’s a lot of pressure, but you’re all we’ve got. And I don’t think a Gigantosaurus could get through the Waverider’s hull, but I really don’t want to find out.”

She gave him a small smile, making it clear that last bit was a joke. Jax returned the smile with a grin.

“Okay, okay, I’ve got it. I’ll shout when we’re in better shape and I’ll make sure getting us in the air again is the priority. We can worry about the small stuff later.”

“Thanks, Jax.” At least she could rely on one of her crew to do a good job.

***

Rip awoke in the medbay and he actually felt considerably better. The headache was gone, the pain was manageable, and he no longer felt sick when he tried to move his head.

“Ah, Captain Hunter, you’re awake,” said Martin. “How are you feeling?”

Rip blinked and looked around. It appeared to just be the two of them.

“Er, much better,” he said. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Six hours,” supplied Gideon.

Martin nodded. “Gideon has completed healing your abdominal wounds, dealt with the swelling from the concussion, and whilst you will need to take it easy for a little while to make sure the new bone growth has knitted correctly, your broken arm and rib are looking much better. I suggest you continue to wear the sling for the next few days at least to keep your arm supported.”

Rip looked down at his arm in the sling, and sighed. That was going to be a nuisance. He frowned as his memory from just before he passed out began to return.

“What about the temporal radiation?” he asked. “Am I clear of that too?”

“It appears to have dissipated to barely more than background levels, so obviously I would like to continue to monitor you, but it looks as if you are heading in the direction of normality,” said Martin, examining the readings on the tablet in front of him.

Rip took a deep breath and nodded. “Good, then I don’t need to stay here any longer and I can get back to work.”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely wise,” said Martin. “Really, we should wait until your readings are _completely_ normal…”

Rip was already sitting up and sliding off the medical couch, he waved a hand at Martin.

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Martin. It must have just been an unusual side effect of the time storm,” he said, planting his feet on the floor and grabbing his coat from the arm of the other couch.

He assumed one of the Legends had slung it there when they’d removed it earlier. He shrugged it on over his good arm, having to resort to it being left hanging over his shoulder on the other side. He needed to go by his quarters and get a fresh shirt anyway, so he might be better leaving it there on this occasion. He was half in the corridor before Martin called to him.

“Captain, if you’re going to insist on leaving then you need to come back for a check-up tomorrow morning,” said Martin. “These readings are very… interesting, to say the least.”

“If you think it’s necessary,” replied Rip, deciding that it was quicker just to give in. He backed out of the medbay, talking as he did so. “But I really do feel fine.”

With that he disappeared down the corridor and towards his quarters, where he changed into fresh clothes as quickly as his mending arm and rib would allow. The sling seemed rather unnecessary and just got in the way of everything. He left the sling on the bed, and turned to leave but as he went to the door, he found that it wouldn’t open.

He looked upwards. “Gideon, the door to my quarters appears to be malfunctioning. Could you run a diagnostic, please?”

“It is not malfunctioning. I am not letting you out until you put the sling on. It is medically recommended,” said the AI.

For about ten seconds Rip warred internally with the response that he wanted to give and the one he knew he _should_ give to get Gideon to let him out of his quarters more quickly. His fists clenched at his sides, and his arm twinged with a reminder that Gideon was probably right.

“Really? This is childish, Gideon,” he said, unable to prevent the wrong choice from winning.

“You were in hypovolaemic shock when the Legends brought you back to the ship. You should be resting in order to return your body to full strength,” said Gideon. “If you are going to ignore my instructions on that then you can at least do the one small thing you need to do in order to allow your arm to heal correctly.”

“Gideon…” he started, and then shook his head.

He picked up the sling from the bed and put it back on. He stopped before he moved back to the door.

“There, happy now?”

“Very,” said Gideon in a positively ecstatic tone, and the door opened.

“Where are the Legends? Dr Palmer said something about a new time lab?” he asked, as he quickly took advantage of the open door.

“Indeed, they have converted Cargo Bay D into a new scientific research space,” said Gideon. “It was quite sensible.”

“And what happened to everything that was in Cargo Bay D?” asked Rip, suddenly slightly concerned. There were things in Cargo Bay D that should not be discarded without proper care being taken over their disposal.

“Dr Palmer found a new algorithm for stacking and managed to fit both the contents of Cargo Bay D and C into one room,” said Gideon.

“Thank goodness for that,” said Rip, and strode away down the corridor, feeling surprisingly happy to be back in the familiar surroundings. “Gideon, ask everyone who isn’t in the lab to meet me there. I think we need to have a frank discussion with the crew about our current situation.”

“Yes, Captain Hunter,” said Gideon.

He entered the new time lab to find Ray drawing equations on a glass board, while Nate pondered over a monitor that showed a diagram of the timeline as it had been when they’d last been able get any kind of readings on it. Amaya was looking through one of his more advanced manuals on the theory of time travel, while a martial arts dummy had been set up at the other end of the room and Sara was laying into it was her usual enthusiasm.

“Rip,” said Ray, with a broad smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Back to my usual self, thank you, Dr Palmer, and ready to get to work,” said Rip, looking over the timeline data on the screen.

Sara stopped her workout, grabbing water and a towel.

“Are you sure you should be out of medbay?” asked Sara, just as Jax, Martin and Mick entered the room. “You turned into a teenager.”

“Professor Stein and Gideon tell me that the temporal radiation is back to near normal levels,” replied Rip, with as much nonchalance as he could manage. He himself was a little concerned, but he pushed that from his mind.

“I also said that I would prefer you to remain in the medbay for monitoring,” said Martin.

“Unfortunately, we have more important things to worry about right now,” said Rip. “If you have another expert in time travel then I will gladly return to bed. No? Then we should get on with this.”

“Okay, let’s go through what we’ve got,” said Sara. “What do we know?”

“We crossed our own timeline, it caused a huge time storm that seems to have broken time itself,” said Nate. “Gideon can’t get any new data on what the timeline looks like now.”

“The scans from the sensors in the jumpship and the Waverider show that the timestream is in bad shape. The temporal radiation is all over the place, building and dropping,” said Ray, pointing at the equation on the board.

“That makes sense,” said Rip. “Everything is in flux. We need to stabilise the timeline before we can get any idea of how bad things are.”

“One paradox caused all of this damage,” said Amaya, with wonder.

“I don’t think so,” said Rip. “When I was… a teenager, er, I mean when my teenage self was here, I was transported to the timestream and there was something else there, something that was taking advantage of the crack that we made. We may have started this, but something is making it worse.”

“You were in the timestream without any kind of time machine?” asked Sara, looking thoroughly confused.

“Didn’t you tell us that was impossible during one of those long lectures on temporal physics?” asked Jax, equally perplexed.

“I know how it sounds, but I didn’t imagine it,” said Rip.

He looked around at the other people in the room, and none of them appeared to really believe what he was saying. He supposed that he couldn’t blame them.

“You had a concussion, and there were weird time things going on,” said Nate. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen, I’m just saying that maybe it’s not the most obvious explanation.”

“Look, right now, the most important thing is that we fix this,” said Sara. “How do we stabilise the timeline and get all of these dinosaurs out of LA?”

“My calculations indicate that the Waverider is the epicentre of the time storm,” said Ray, tapping the board. “Somehow we need to discharge all the paradox energy that we built up fighting the Legion of Doom.”

Martin was now also examining the board and Ray’s calculations. “I think it can be done. We could use the hull as the mechanism to channel the energy back into the timestream, thus stabilising it enough for us to begin sorting out the problem areas.”

He was adding a few equations of his own now, and Rip was at the limit of his understanding now of what was on the board. It said something that both Ray and Martin could now theorise at this level on how the timestream functioned. Rip didn’t feel redundant yet, but he wondered if he might one day.

“So, it won’t put the dinosaurs back where they came from?” asked Jax.

“I’m afraid not,” said Rip. “We’ll have to take care of that ourselves, and any other anachronisms we locate.”

“Which means we had better work out a way to wrangle some dinosaurs,” replied Sara.

“I think I might be able to help there,” said Amaya. “I’ve been trying to talk to one animal at a time, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t talk to the herd. If we can work out how to get them back home, then I can get them to move. None of them want to be here.”

“Makes sense,” said Jax. “I doubt I’d want to be stuck in that concrete jungle.”

Rip nodded. His headache was returning, but he wasn’t prepared to acknowledge that right now.

“I have been working on a new time travel device, or at least I was before all of this madness,” said Rip. “The idea is that I can open a doorway into another time. It’s still only a theory, but hopefully I can build something that could give us a way to get the dinosaurs back to where they belong.”

Sara looked a little surprised by that. “You can do that?”

“Of course. I invented the time sphere, you know,” he said, with a touch of indignance.

“I did not know. You’ve been hiding your talents, Rip,” said Sara.

“Not really,” said Rip. “It’s just that you haven’t been paying attention to my skillset.”

Pain stabbed through his temple, and he closed his eyes involuntarily.

“Rip?” asked Jax, “are you okay, dude?”

Rip took a deep breath, trying to wave off the young man’s concern.

“Just a headache,” he said. The pain spiked again, and he had to put out a hand to steady himself.

“That isn’t _just_ anything,” said Ray. “You can hardly stand.”

Someone was already bringing a chair over, and then hands were guiding him back to it.

“It’s probably the recovery from the concussion,” murmured Rip.

There was a final spike of pain, and Rip saw the green of the timestream again.

***

“Phil!” said Sara, with shock.

One moment Rip had been sat in the chair in front of them and then it was an entirely different figure. This man had a shaggy beard and long hair, and he was wearing totally different clothes.

Phil looked up at Sara like a startled rabbit. “Lady, I thought you said you were going to fix this.”

The American accent was striking and made the change even more disconcerting.

“Yeah, I did,” said Sara, awkwardly.

Phil looked around himself, frowning.

“This isn’t where I was before,” he said. “Did you guys kidnap me again?”

Looks were exchanged around the room.

“Maybe a little,” said Ray. “It’s complicated.”

“Great! Just great! I’m never going to get my film finished,” he threw his hands up in the air. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not this Rip guy you keep asking about? Why can’t you just leave me alone? George is never going to talk to me again!”

“Are you feeling okay?” asked Martin.

Phil gave him a very weary look. “Look, I’ve been better, okay? But then I’ve also just been kidnapped by a bunch of weirdos who think the screen play that I’m writing is real. It’s stressful.”

Sara sighed.

“I think we should take you down to the medbay and get Gideon to give you a check-up,” she said, hands on her hips. This was turning into a long day and they could all have used a break, but the problems just kept growing.

Martin was looking at Phil intensely, and Nate noticed.

“Martin, I don’t think he likes being stared at,” said Nate.

“Oh sorry, it’s just that Captain Hunter’s teenage self had already returned to normal by this point. He was only present for a few minutes,” said Martin. “It seems that these phenomena are lasting longer.”

“What does that mean?” asked Sara.

“I don’t know,” replied Martin. “It may be nothing.”

“It’s worth checking out,” said Ray. “Come on, Phil. Let’s get you down to the Medbay.”

“Again?” asked Phil. “I thought you were done with all the tests.”

“Just a couple more, Mr Gasmer,” said Martin.

“Yeah, like I have a choice. You’ll just get the gorilla to “escort” me,” said Phil.

Mick was stepping forwards to do just that, but Sara stopped him.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but this would really help us, and we need to check that you’re okay,” said Sara.

“I don’t see how flashing lights at me is going to do any good, but I guess I’ve got nothing better to do,” said Phil.

He got to his feet and headed towards the door, his hands gesturing as he spoke. Ray and Martin steered the rather annoyed film student towards the medbay, and they could hear his continued worrying as he walked away.

“That was… weird,” said Nate, apparently settling on a word, even though everyone knew it didn’t really describe what had just happened.

“Yeah, is Rip travelling back in time or something?” asked Jax.

“We’ll just have to see what Ray and Martin come up with,” said Sara. “In the meantime, everyone back to what you were doing. We’ve got a lot to do.”

“We need Rip working on that thing to get the dinosaurs back to the Jurassic,” said Jax. “Although… Gideon, did Rip have any notes on his new time gizmo he was working on?”

“Yes, Mr Jackson,” said Gideon. “I can make them available to you. Captain Hunter had completed most of the theoretical work. He just needed to build a prototype.”

Jax nodded, and looked at Sara. “If that’s all, I guess I could give it a try.”

“I don’t know, we still need you working on the ship,” said Sara.

“We can’t leave LA with all these dinosaurs running around. Maybe you and Mick could get the basic stuff done and I’ll do the more complicated stuff?” he asked, hopefully.

Sara found that she didn’t have many options. There were too many problems to solve and not enough people to solve them.

“Okay, but I want Ray to check it over before you actually try to use it, assuming Rip isn’t back to his old self before then,” said Sara.

Jax nodded. “Got it, and don’t worry, I’ll be careful. I know what happens when you mess around with time energy without proper precautions.”

Sara gave him a pat on the back. “Yeah, let’s not have a repeat of that. Everyone back to work, I’d really like one of our many problems to be solved before we get old and grey.”

***

Ray Palmer looked up at the readings on the screen in the Waverider’s medbay. Phil was fidgeting while Gideon scanned him once again.

“The temporal radiation is up again. That shouldn’t be possible,” he said, mostly to himself. “Where is it even coming from?”

Martin set another set of scans going and came over to look at the readings too.

“Indeed, the Waverider is shielded to prevent exactly this kind of contamination,” said Martin. “There does appear to be a cyclical nature to it.”

“I just want to go home,” said Phil. “I never asked for this trip. There’s really nothing special about me, I’m a starving film student that spends his down time smoking weed. I tried to tell you all that.”

“On the contrary, Mr Gasmer,” said Martin, “you are exceedingly special, and I’m sorry I didn’t have time to get to know you better the last time we met.”

Ray nodded. “And in this case, you may well be helping us to solve a much bigger problem. One that could be affecting the entire universe.”

Phil’s eyes widened. “Woah, that’s kind of… woah.” He made a motion that suggested his head was exploding. “I was working on a script that was going to be the sequel to my first Legends film. I was going to have Rip Hunter and Sandra save the universe in that. I can’t even get the first one made, so I guess that’s off the table.”

“Maybe your friend George can help you out,” said Ray.

“Yeah, George is a talented guy. He’s got some great ideas about re-making some Japanese movies and updating them,” said Phil. “Maybe adding a few spaceships… I should probably take notes so that I can give him my ideas.”

Phil patted a pocket, apparently looking for a notebook or something similar.

Ray blinked twice. It was a miracle that this man was also Rip Hunter. He was so different to his alter ego, and Ray had to wonder how this personality had ever come to be. Had Rip chosen it somehow or was this just what his brain had produced after touching the time drive? He’d have to find time to ask him once he was back in his right mind.

“Gideon, was the jumpship’s shielding damaged in the crash?”

“The data from the black box would seem to indicate that it happened before the crash, in the timestream itself,” replied Gideon. “It appears that the jumpship had already sustained damage from one of our previous adventures. This went unnoticed until the time storm found the weakness.”

“Perhaps we should treat Mr Gasmer for radiation poisoning. Do you have any data for treating temporal radiation poisoning, Gideon?” asked Martin.

“Unfortunately, temporal radiation does not respond to traditional radiation therapies. Almost all cases of unshielded exposure to temporal radiation have resulted in rapid aging and death. This does not match those symptoms,” said Gideon.

“Okay, what if the temporal radiation is the symptom and not the cause?” suggested Ray.

“It’s a theory, but pure conjecture at the moment,” said Martin. “And that doesn’t actually get us any closer to dealing with the underlying issue.”

“I don’t suppose you have an aspirin handy?” asked Phil, “my head feels like I just finished a two-day bender.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Ray, and went to get the bottle of painkillers that always sat on the side in the medbay. He didn’t complete the action because Phil cried out with pain, and Ray turned to see him grasping his head.

For a moment it was like looking at an unfocused photo and then Phil was replaced by Rip, who also looked like he was in extreme pain, and far more pale than he should be. Then he passed out, again. This was becoming a habit.

“Rip!” said Ray, with shock, but unsurprisingly, got no answer. Ray grabbed the cuff and attached it to Rip’s wrist. “Gideon, he doesn’t look good.”

“His condition has deteriorated whilst Mr Gasmer was here,” said Gideon. “I am treating his symptoms, but that is all I can do.”

“The radiation peaked and now it’s falling again,” said Martin. “Gideon, ask Sara to come to the medbay.”

Rip groaned and opened his eyes.

“Oh, thank god, I’m back,” said Rip, his voice tired and full of relief. He then began to push himself up into a sitting position.

“Rip, you need to lie down,” said Ray. “You’re not well.”

“I don’t have time to lie down,” spat Rip, crossly, and coughed.

“It would be better if you stayed here so that we can monitor you,” said Martin.

Rip shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. There are cracks in time and they’re widening. We need to stabilise the timestream.”

“Rip, you were just Phil Gasmer. The temporal radiation is damaging your body,” said Ray.

“I was Phil again? Phil was here?” asked Rip, suddenly with all of his attention on Ray.

“Yes, Mr Gasmer was rather surprised too,” said Martin.

“No, you’re missing the point!” said Rip, urgently. “If I was Phil, there’s a chance that I might become… Him! The one that Thawne brainwashed into nearly killing you all.” Rip couldn’t meet their eyes and he sounded ashamed. He had also just referred to himself in the third person, and Ray wasn’t sure which one was more of an alarm bell.

“Oh, oh no,” said Martin, suddenly looking a little frightened and maybe a half shade paler.

Then Ray understood too. “You mean evil you?”

Rip nodded. “You need to put me in the brig, now.”

“Why would we put you in the brig?” asked Sara, walking through the door.

“Because I might become Thawne’s lacky again,” said Rip, distastefully. “If I’m bouncing through my own life, it’s a possibility that we have to consider. Even as a Time Master I might not exactly be friendly if I find people on my ship and it’s before I met you all. I haven’t always been in the best frame of mind… I am potentially a danger to the crew.”

Ray thought he knew what Rip was trying to say without actually having to spell it out. There had been a period before he’d recruited the Legends when he’d tried everything to save Miranda and Jonas. Ray had seen how single minded their Captain could be and he had no doubt that he’d been worse without other people around him to tell him when he was going too far or making bad choices. Things had been much better once they’d defeated Vandal Savage and Rip could finally mourn his family, or at least it had been until the Spear of Destiny stuff had started. That had raised a completely new set of issues for Rip to deal with.

“Captain Hunter, whilst I know you don’t want to hurt anyone, the temporal radiation is poisoning your body,” said Martin. “Every time you vanish it gets worse. You should be here in medbay.”

“I should be helping you to deal with the mess that we made,” said Rip, crossly.

“It’s okay, Gideon gave Jax your notes on your new time device. He’s going to build it and then we can at least get these dinosaurs back where they belong,” said Sara.

“And we’ve got two thirds of a plan to stabilise the timestream,” said Ray, with a smile.

“So, you really don’t need to worry,” said Martin, “we have everything under control.”

“I highly doubt that,” said Rip. “And whilst Jax is a very competent engineer, working with temporal technology is an entirely different level of skill. I would urge you to tell him to be very careful and I would really like to check the device before he attempts to use it.”

He dissolved into a coughing fit, holding his better hand to his mouth. When he finished there was blood on his palm.

“Delightful,” he said, sarcastically.

Ray handed him a tissue from the box on the side, and he cleaned himself up.

Sara gave Rip a rather exasperated look. “I’m not putting you in the brig when you’re busy coughing up a lung.”

Rip let out a frustrated sigh. “If you won’t put me in the brig then you need to put me in restraints, and I’d suggest also having Mr Rory present with a stunner in case that doesn’t work.”

“Rip, you’re not Houdini,” said Sara.

“No, but I know my own ship and so does… _he_ ,” said Rip, the “he” clearly distasteful on his lips and again he was unable to look at Sara. “I’m also more resourceful than you’ve ever given me credit for, and he has none of my… compassion to hold him back. I know what he did. I remember it all, all the terrible thoughts he had about ending your lives. If I was to hurt any of you, I would never, ever be able to forgive myself. I already can’t.”

“It wasn’t you, you know that,” said Sara. “None of us hold it against you.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Sara, but he is a part of me, even if he is not the whole of me, and I have to live with that,” said Rip, his eyes full of unresolved guilt. They should probably work on that.

Ray caught sight of the readings behind Rip’s head.

“Guys, the radiation levels are rising again. If we’re going to do something, we need to do it now.”

Rip met Sara’s eyes. “Restraints, please.”

Sara didn’t look happy but she nodded, and retrieved the restrains from the cupboard next to the couch. Martin rather reluctantly helped her strap Rip down, and the former Time Master let them without any further comment until they were done.

“Some painkillers would be nice too,” said Rip, with a glance upwards.

“Administering,” said Gideon, without further prompting.

Ray was more interested in the radiation readings though. There was something about this pattern that he recognised. The more he looked at it, the more it seemed to mirror the larger cycles of the destabilised timestream the sensor data had shown. Maybe Rip was experiencing something similar. He had mentioned that he believed he’d been transported into the timestream, perhaps he too was acting as a kind of lightning rod for the disturbance in the timestream. The more Ray thought about it, the more it felt like the Waverider had dragged the disturbance with it, creating the storm. Maybe that’s what these jumps between Rip’s past selves were: a kind of personal time storm.

“You know, Rip’s problem might just be the same as ours,” said Ray, voicing his thoughts.

“What do you mean?” asked Martin.

“These readings are similar to the ones the Waverider captured with the sensors, we didn’t spot it at first because it’s on a much smaller scale. It’s like we’re an irritant to the timestream and it’s causing all the anomalies, including Rip becoming past versions of himself…” Ray shrugged, unable to take the final step and work out what the solution was.

Rip groaned.

“Is the headache getting worse?” asked Martin. “The painkillers should be working.”

“They _were_ ,” murmured Rip. “Just not anymore…”

Ray had an idea of how bad things had to be before Rip would even request painkillers. He’d seen him wave off any medical attention after a mission just because he had things that needed to be done first.

And with a wave of green light, in the blink of an eye, Rip was gone and instead an eight year old boy was staring back up at them. Before anyone could react, he’d slipped his much smaller wrists and ankles out of the restraints and was making a run for the door. Sara caught him but only because he almost crashed into her. The boy, who was wearing a tan jacket and dark jeans, put all of his might into a kick to Sara’s shin, and quite understandably she let out a yelp of pain and let go her grip.

“I don’t know who you are, missus,” said the boy, and then he was brandishing a knife… one of Sara’s knives that he must have grabbed when he crashed into her. “But you ain’t getting me. I’m not doing no more tests.”

With that, the boy ran into the corridor and when Ray had recovered from his shock enough to follow him, he was nowhere to be seen.

“Wow, I’d forgotten how much baby Rip liked knives,” said Ray.

“Not helpful, Ray,” said Sara, who was rubbing at her shin. “Gideon, can you track the kid?”

“I can,” said Gideon. “He is hiding in the vents and I have pinpointed his location. His heart rate and breathing are elevated. It would suggest that he is scared.”

“Makes sense,” said Ray.

“Yeah, but if he’s scared then he’ll probably stab first and ask questions later,” said Sara. “I guess we were worried about the wrong one of Rip’s past selves. I’ll go and try to talk him down. You and Martin need to keep working on stabilising the time stream. It’s more important than ever.”

“Yeah, the only way Rip is going to recover is if we can, uh, decontaminate him,” said Ray, unable to think of a better word for dealing with the temporal radiation that was going to kill Rip if they couldn’t find a way to help him.

“I think Raymond may be on to something,” said Martin. Ray was always amused to note that Martin would call him Ray when he’d come up with something useful. When he was annoyed with him he was “Dr Palmer”, or even “Mr Palmer” if Martin had decided he’d said something that negated his PhD.

“I am?” asked Ray.

“If we can work out a way to discharge the Waverider’s paradox energy then all we have to do is find a way of safely connecting that to Captain Hunter,” said Martin.

“Great,” said Sara, “now go make it work.”

“It’s not that simple…” began Martin.

“There’s really only one way to do it,” Ray began to add.

Sara held out a hand to stop them. “If you can’t do this, Rip dies and the timeline stays broken. I don’t like either of those options, so you’d better give it your best shot.”

Martin made a face but nodded. “Very well, we’ll be in the lab with the others.”

All Ray could do was shrug and follow him as he walked towards the lab.


	3. I've Never Worn Mine

“Michael,” said Gideon.

The boy twitched at the sound of his name, but he was sat curled up with his knees by his shoulders and his head down, arms wrapped around himself. He was trying to be the smallest possible thing that he could be, because he’d learnt at a young age that if you weren’t seen then people couldn’t hurt you.

“Michael, I know that you can hear me,” said Gideon, again.

“Go away,” said the boy, crossly.

“I can’t. This is my ship,” said Gideon.

“How do you know my name?” asked Michael.

“Your mother told me when she came to visit,” said Gideon.

The boy finally raised his head. “My mother came to visit?”

“Yes, although that has not yet happened in your time. I know that you are scared at the moment. You are in a strange place that you don’t recognise. However, I am charged with protecting you. My name is Gideon.”

The boy coughed, and Gideon searched her memory banks for the admissions records for Michael. It was only a few seconds of work to find that the boy had been suffering from a nasty case of tuberculosis, which had been easily cured by the correct antibiotics. It made sense that the boy was pale and thin now. It was likely that he would have been dead within the year if the Time Masters had not found him, which of course made perfect sense because then he would have had no impact on the timeline.

“Gideon is a boy’s name but you sound like a girl,” Michael said.

“I am actually neither a boy nor a girl. I am an artificial intelligence,” said Gideon. “Although I do present as female.”

Michael looked interested in that. He had always been smart.

“What is an “artificial intelligence”?” he asked.

“I was not born like you. I was built,” said Gideon. It would be many years before her future Captain would be able to understand terms like “computer” and she didn’t want to complicate things now.

“Like clockwork?” he asked. “I saw toys that worked when a spring was wound with a key.”

“A little like that but far more complicated,” said Gideon. “The crew are looking for you. They are quite concerned about you and I think it would be a good idea if you gave Captain Lance her knife back. It is quite sharp and it doesn’t belong to you.”

“I need it,” said Michael, in a slightly petulant tone. “I have to protect myself.”

“I will protect you, Michael. You are important to me,” said Gideon. “And the people here are your friends.”

“I don’t even know them,” he replied.

“You will, in the future. I wish I could explain but I am unable to give you too much information about your life,” said Gideon.

Gideon could see that Captain Lance was preparing to pull herself into the vents elsewhere in this particular run of conduit. She would be with Michael in a matter of minutes, and although she was larger and less manoeuvrable than the boy, she had wisely decided to bring a stun gun with her. Gideon would prefer that she didn’t use it because her protection of Rip Hunter extended to his younger self, but also it would be hard to remove an unconscious child from the vents. Her Captain could get himself into a lot of trouble, even when he didn’t try.

“Will I really have friends?” asked Michael.

“Yes, Michael. I am one of them,” said Gideon. “Are you hungry? I could replicate a snack for you in the galley.”

“The galley?” he asked, but she noted that he did perk up at that mention of food.

“Yes, it is what we call the kitchen,” she replied. “There are all kinds of food available there.”

“Roast beef?” he asked.

“Yes, I can make that for you,” said Gideon. “Perhaps you could climb down and meet Captain Lance in the corridor. She will show you where the kitchen is.”

“Very well,” said Michael, coughing again as he crawled down the corridor to the nearest way out. He knocked the grate to the floor and then climbed out of the wall where he’d been hiding.

Gideon had already warned Sara to expect this, so no one threw any knives at anyone. Instead Sara was stood there, trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

“Sorry if I scared you earlier,” said Sara.

“I wasn’t scared,” replied Michael, which Gideon knew was an outright lie, but she wasn’t going to call him on that. “You were just bigger than me.”

He reached into his pocket and removed the assassin’s knife. He held it out to her.

“It’s a nice knife,” said Michael. “It’s got a good grip and it’s not too heavy.”

Sara smiled and accepted the knife. She stowed it in a holster in the small of her back.

“Thanks, kid,” she said. “Come on, let’s get you some food. You look like a strong wind would knock you down.”

Sara led Michael through the corridors and into the galley. Gideon had already fabricated him a roast beef sandwich and a glass of milk, which she hoped he would like and eat.

“You live here?” asked Michael.

“Yeah, with some friends,” said Sara.

Michael ate in silence for a moment, and startled as Jax entered the room. Gideon had considered stopping him from coming into the galley, but her Captain had always gotten on well with Mr Jackson. She wondered if another presence might be calming.

“Woah,” said Jax. “No one told me we’d got baby Rip.”

Gideon reflected that this might not have been such a good idea after all. The boy had put down the sandwich, and was looking like he might try to make a run for it. Gideon closed the door behind Jax slowly, just in case he did decide to bolt again. The ship was not a safe place for a child to be running around unaccompanied.

“His name is Michael,” said Sara, pointedly. Gideon was glad that at least someone was paying attention to the integrity of the timeline.

“Right,” said Jax. “I guess you’re about eight now?”

Michael shrugged. “Never known when me birthday was.”

“Michael is correct. The Time Masters did not record birthdays. They considered them unnecessary information for their recruits. He is approximately eight years old at this point,” said Gideon.

“They said that I’m smart for my age,” said Michael, just a little proudly. He took a swig of the milk. “But I’m fed up with their stupid tests.”

“Tests?” asked Jax.

The boy started eating again, but stopped long enough to answer the question. “Yeah, they got me to do all these puzzles. With numbers and the like. Weren’t that hard, but then they wanted me to do running on a weird road that moved under my feet and they wouldn’t let me stop. I was coughing because I’ve not been well. I think I fell over, and then I was here.”

“Not well?” asked Jax, gently moving to sit down at the same table.

“Michael has had tuberculosis,” said Gideon, softly, not wanting to check the records for the tests that the Time Masters performed to see when he might be returned to fitness and ready to properly begin his training. “He is getting better now though.”

“And they made you run?” asked Sara.

Michael shrugged. “They always let me rest later. Can’t complain when they give me three meals a day and it’s warm and dry there. Not all the kids can say that. There were a lot of us on the street where I came from in London. Can I look at your knives again?”

Sara raised an eyebrow. “I suppose so, but look and don’t touch.”

Gideon noticed that Sara didn’t seem to think that it was at all strange that Rip knew that she had multiple knives on her person. Sara pulled out three from around her body, and even Gideon couldn’t tell exactly where she was hiding them all unless she resorted to her metal scanner. She placed them on the table. Michael’s eyes lit up with interest, as he looked them over.

“Where did you get them?” he asked, “I’ve never seen knives like them before.”

“Nanda Parbat,” replied Sara. “You probably haven’t heard of that place yet, but it’s the home of the League of Assassins.”

“They are right pretty,” said Michael, finishing his sandwich. He gulped down the rest of the milk.

“Hey, slow down,” said Jax, “you can have more if you want it.”

Michael did drink a little slower, but he kept an eye on Jax, as if he might want to take the milk away.

“What are they made of? They have a pattern to them the like I haven’t seen before,” said Michael.

“It’s a metal called Damascus steel,” said Sara, and there was a touch of pride in her voice.

“I would like to own such a knife one day,” he said.

“Maybe you will,” said Sara, who wisely didn’t mention that Rip had once given her a set of knives. Gideon happened to know that Rip had a particular Damascus steel knife that he always kept in his boot.

Gideon’s internal sensors began to alert her to the fact that temporal energy was rising, and it was emanating from the small boy in the galley. At least he had managed to eat something. Gideon found herself disliking the treatment that Rip had experienced as a boy in the care of the Time Masters. Things had been much better when Mary Xavier had taken over.

“Captain Lance, I believe you should take Michael back to Medbay,” said Gideon.

“It’s time then?” asked Sara.

“I’m afraid so,” replied Gideon.

“Time for what?” asked Michael.

“It’s time for you to go home,” said Sara, perhaps a little sadly. “But we’ll meet again, don’t worry.”

“Oh, are we going in a ship like this one?”

“No, we need to get you back to Medbay, because you’re probably going to have a headache,” said Jax.

Gideon appreciated the way that he was completely calm about it, as if the boy wasn’t going back to a time where things might be hard. At least she knew that he had Mary Xavier, Miranda and Jonas in his future. However, he also had Zaman Druce and Vandal Savage and Eobard Thawne, and so many others that she had lost count. It was his life though, and she had been there with him for much of it.

Then suddenly Michael had put his hands to his head, and had let out a wail. Jax didn’t waste anymore time. He picked up Michael and ran with him down the corridor back to medbay. He deposited the writhing child on the medbay couch just as Michael let out a scream. Jax was barely able to get the cuff around the boy’s wrist because he was moving about so much, and definitely in pain. Moments later, like a flickering photo, the adult version of Rip Hunter was back on the couch.

Rip looked up at Jax and Sara, who had followed them to the medbay. He blinked at them.

“Mallus,” murmured Rip, and with that he was unconscious.

Gideon didn’t like the readings that she was getting from him at all. He was pale and he was suffering from all the classic signs of radiation poisoning. The problem was that this was all wrong, because the only radiation that she was detecting was temporal and that shouldn’t cause these symptoms. She felt that something was being missed.

“Gideon, is there anything else that you can do?” asked Sara.

“I can continue to treat his symptoms and perform supportive care. Only finding a way to stop this phenomenon will reverse the damage that this is doing to his body,” said Gideon.

“What did he say before he passed out?” asked Jax.

“Mollusc?” asked Sara, frowning. “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask him when he wakes up.”

Ray came running into the room a few seconds after Sara had spoken.

“He’s back,” he said, seeing the adult Rip back on the medbay couch. “Good. Martin and I, we think we’ve got it, but we need to take the Waverider back into the timestream and hook Rip up to the hull.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Jax. “We have temporal shielding for a reason.”

“I know, and we’ll need to disconnect him immediately, as soon as the energy is discharged,” said Ray.

“What you are proposing could lead to Captain Hunter’s death,” said Gideon, unimpressed with their safety precautions.

“There isn’t any other choice, and looking at those readings, he’s going to die if we don’t do something,” said Ray. “Martin and Nate are getting stuff set up down in the lab.”

“Jax, how’s the ship doing? Could we lift off?”

“Maybe, as long as we take it slow and don’t go up for long. She’s held together with duct tape and wishful thinking,” said Jax. “Mick and I need more time to repair her properly.”

“That is correct. Flight systems are at emergency settings,” said Gideon. “However, my self repair systems have now repaired the hull plating and will be able to divert to other systems.”

“Okay, do the best you can. When are you and Martin going to be ready?” asked Sara.

“Give us thirty minutes,” said Ray.

“Okay, Jax, get us ready and meet me on the bridge,” said Sara.

Jax gave a shake of his head, obviously unhappy and Gideon could understand why. The ship was certainly not able to make an extended flight. She would just have to do the best she could within the limitations she had. Her Captain’s life depended on it.

***

Sara sat down on the unoccupied medbay couch, and rested her head on hand with her elbow on the arm rest. The others had left to get to work, but someone was needed to keep an eye on Rip, and as per his request, she’d put the restraints back on. She looked over at him.

“You really pick the worst moments to get injured,” she said, to the unconscious man.

An alarm sounded. Gideon’s sensors had once again detected a rise in temporal energy.

“Captain Lance, the temporal radiation has reached a peak again,” said Gideon.

“That was quick,” said Sara, as green energy once again washed over Rip.

It took her a moment to spot the subtle differences, the missing sling on his arm and the different style of shirt underneath his coat. The hair had streaks of grey in it and his beard had a touch of salt and pepper to it. He opened his eyes and looked out at the assembled group.

“Oh bollocks,” he said, “I could have done without this today. Let me save you the trouble of twenty questions, I am approximately thirty years older than the Rip Hunter you are acquainted with today and I know exactly how to fix the machine that Martin is about to call to tell you has a fundamental flaw.”

“Uh, okay,” said Sara, somewhat stunned into inaction. “You haven’t got any less arrogant in your old age.”

Rip rolled his eyes. “Perhaps you could let me out of these restraints.”

Sara hesitated. The change had been very quick last time and she wondered if this version of Rip would be around as long as the child he’d been.

“Captain Lance, Professor Stein appears to have a problem and would like to see you in the lab,” said Gideon.

Sara sighed, and went to undo Rip’s restraints.

“On our way, Gideon. I don’t suppose you can tell me if one of your less polite alter egos turns up at any point before we fix you?” asked Sara. She removed the last of the restraints and Rip got to his feet.

“That would be knowledge of your own future timeline,” said Rip, as he rubbed at first one wrist and then the other.

Sara caught the glint of a gold ring on the third finger of his left hand, and for a moment he met her eyes. He knew she wanted to ask about it.

“And causing paradoxes was how we got into this mess in the first place,” he said, glancing down and then back to Sara.

No answers would be forthcoming to any questions that she might want to ask about their future.

Now that he was standing, she could see that he was as thin as he ever was, but he seemed fit and well. He was just a little slower than perhaps he had been. He looked around him.

“It is good to see you, Sara, and be back on board the Waverider,” he said, as they left medbay and walked towards the lab. “It’s interesting, seeing it as it was. Gideon?”

“Yes, Captain Hunter,” replied the AI.

“Captain? Oh, of course. I’d forgotten how good that sounded,” he grinned. “I might have to get you to start calling me that again.”

“I don’t call you Captain?” asked Gideon.

“Not where I’m from,” replied Rip. “Could you call up the charts for the particular area of the timestream that we’ll be entering. We’ll need the, for want of a better, weather report. The last thing we want is to be hit full force by that timestorm again, and the terrain of that part of the timestream should help us determine how we guide the ship.”

“Yes, Captain,” replied Gideon.

Rip smiled, and Sara wasn’t sure that she’d ever seen Rip smile so much in all their time working together. She was very used to him being the grieving widower or with the weight of the universe on his shoulders.

They made it to the lab and entered to find Martin arguing loudly with Ray, and Amaya and Nate trying to calm the situation. There was a large device set up in the centre of the room with chunky cables running out of it and to the edge of the room. One of the wires led to a chair, which sat on a plastic plinth in the centre of the room, and that looked quite menacing for whoever was meant to sit there. The machine itself had clearly been thrown together using parts from the Waverider and whatever happened to be lying around. It was a rush job, but that was all they had time for.

Sara pinched the bridge of her nose, because this was the second argument that she’d had to break up today.

“Bloody hell,” said Rip, beside her with resignation. “Well this is something that I don’t miss.”

“Quiet!” shouted Sara, and everyone turned towards the new arrivals. “What the hell, guys?”

“A scientific disagreement,” said Martin.

“It will work,” said Ray.

“Only if we don’t mind putting the entire ship at risk, as well as time itself,” said Martin, “and Captain Hunter in particular. It needs proper testing.”

“We’ve both been over the equations, Professor,” said Ray. “There’s no more time to test it and we can’t make this any safer. Either we do this now, or time never stabilises.”

“Does someone want to explain what the hell is going on here?” asked Mick, who had wandered into the room just after Sara and Rip with a beer in one hand and a tool kit in the other.

“This device is supposed to discharge the paradox energy from the Waverider,” said Martin.

“Exactly, Martin,” said Rip. “The problem is that the Waverider is like a piece of grit in an oyster shell. We reset the timeline but we were the ones responsible. We are the epicentre of the timestorm, and that is what we need to fix here.”

“You look… different,” said Nate.

“That would be because I’m not your Rip. I’m older and wiser, and I know what happened here,” said Rip. “And the good news is that I didn’t die and neither did you. You do, however, have some interesting times ahead and I wish I could prepare you for them, but if I do that then I’m just as guilty of paradox instigation as we _all_ were at this point. All I can say is that it is fixable, and you are quite capable of doing it, my dear Legends.”

He looked up at the ceiling, as if he was including Gideon in that. Maybe that’s exactly what he was doing. Sara had no idea anymore, but she did trust Rip.

“Probably even that’s more than I should have said,” Rip said, slightly sheepishly.

“We do it,” said Sara. “That’s all we need to know. We take the Waverider into the timestream and we do whatever it is that you two have cooked up to start fixing our mistakes.”

“We have an issue with how we create the energy discharge,” said Martin. “Potentially it could make the storm worse if we do it incorrectly.”

“I know,” said Rip, “I have asked Gideon to provide me with the internal conditions of the time stream where we are expected to enter it. Could you put it on the screen, Gideon?”

“Yes, Captain,” replied the AI. A detailed diagram of what looked like energy readings and topography appeared on the screen. Sara didn’t really understand it, but it seemed that Martin and Ray did.

“Oh, yes, that would make a difference,” said Martin, looking at the screen with some interest.

“Okay, let me to reset the relays to the correct settings and we should be good to go,” said Ray.

“I assume that the dangerous looking chair in the middle of the room is for me?” asked Rip.

“I wouldn’t have said dangerous…” said Ray, looking at the metal chair that had definitely been purloined from the bridge and thrown together with whatever contraption was going to make this thing work. “Inventive, maybe.”

“You keep thinking that, haircut,” said Mick, with a pat on Ray’s back.

Rip strode over to the chair and sat down, getting comfortable, or as comfortable as was possible.

“Okay, everyone who doesn’t need to be here should get to the bridge and strap in. This is going to be rough,” said Sara.

Nate and Mick trailed out of the room.

“Amaya?” asked Sara.

“I’m staying. They need someone to disconnect the cable as soon as the energy has been discharged,” said Amaya.

“And prevent any feedback. If it isn’t done immediately, well, that would not be good for anyone on board,” said Martin, going over to the device that he and Ray had built.

“Someone fast,” added Ray.

Amaya touched her totem, and she was enveloped by a bright etching of a big cat made of light.

“Spirit of the cheetah,” she said, with a smile.

“Got it,” said Sara. “Gideon, warm up those engines. It’s time we gave this a try. Rip? Are you okay here?”

Rip nodded. “I assure you, my younger self will be back very shortly, and only very slightly the worse for wear. Get to the bridge. It’s where you belong, Captain Lance.”

Sara looked back at the older version of Rip. Out of all of the versions of Rip that she’d met today, he was the one that she most wanted to sit down and chat to. Unfortunately, he was precisely the one that she couldn’t talk to that way. He seemed happy in his own skin in a way that their own version of Rip didn’t. He had the answers to so many mysteries that Sara wanted the answers to, and he knew where they would end this adventure. All she could take away from this meeting was that he’d said that he was “back” on the Waverider as if he hadn’t been here for some time, but then he’d talked about Gideon as if they spoke regularly, so Sara was confused. All she could do was go to the bridge and do her part in this.

“Goodbye, Rip, we’ll see you soon,” she said, and with that she left for the bridge.

***

The engines heated up without glitches, much to Jax’s relief. But as Sara gently lifted the ship off the ground, red lights flashed on her control panel which indicated that not all was well. The ship gave a shudder.

“Jax…” she started.

“I see them,” he replied, furiously pressing buttons at his station. “It looks like we’ve got no gyroscope on the cyclic… and maybe some loose connections to the attitude jets. You’re going to have do this by the seat of your pants.”

“What else is new?” she asked. “Gideon, any help you can give me would be great about now.”

“Compensating,” said Gideon.

The ship settled down a little, but it was still flying like a wounded albatross. They weren’t going to be able to stay in the time stream for long. Jax threw off his restraining bar and headed back to the computer console. He had to hold on with one hand while he worked with the other.

“Shit,” he swore under his breath, because he didn’t want anyone else to know that they’d just lost a power transfer coupling that might mean they couldn’t actually leave the timestream.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Jax!” shouted Sara, but he was already pounding away down the corridor.

He skidded to a halt by the junction box that he needed, and rapidly made the repair. Some sparks flew as he reconnected the coupling, but he was smart enough to keep his fingers out of the way. The ship shook around again.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Mr Jackson, Dr Palmer and Professor Stein are having some trouble in the lab,” said Gideon.

“What kind of trouble?” asked Jax, as the Waverider jagged to one side and he had to put a hand out to stop himself from falling to the floor.

“The kind of trouble which involves Captain Hunter,” said Gideon.

That was cryptic and unhelpful, but he had an idea of what it meant which was accompanied by a sinking feeling in his stomach. Jax began to run, making only a slight detour to the weapons locker.

He rounded the corner to see a horribly familiar figure in black, with his hand at Ray’s neck, pushing the inventor into a bench. Amaya was on the floor, shaking her head and looking dazed, while Martin was standing nearby obviously alarmed, and Jax could feel that he was also scared. The last time Evil Rip had made an appearance, he’d knocked Martin unconscious and nearly killed Sara. Jax had been livid with righteous anger, but Sara had reminded him that the twisted version of his friend that the Legion of Doom had created wasn’t Rip. He had to remember that now too.

“Where am I?” shouted the man in black, his eyes flashing with angry contempt.

“You’re on the Waverider,” said Martin, stammering.

“This isn’t right,” snarled Rip. “What tricks are you playing, old man? I know the Waverider better than any of you and this room isn’t on the ship.”

Ray struggled beneath Rip’s grip, his eyes going wide as he struggled to breathe. Suddenly Amaya was up and launching herself at Rip. The two struggled as the Waverider lurched to one side, and everyone lost their footing, ending up in a heap on the ground. Rip landed on top of Amaya, and immediately began trying to get to his feet. Jax grabbed hold of the doorway and managed to stay upright.

“Just goes to show that you don’t know everything,” said Jax, and aimed the stunner at the man on the floor.

“Jax, wait!” shouted Martin, but Jax had already pulled the trigger.

Both Amaya and Rip stopped moving, stunned together. Jax let out a breath.

“No!” shouted Martin. “We needed Amaya to pull the connection.”

Jax looked at the stunner in his hand, and then back at the mess Evil Rip had created. Sara’s voice came over the speakers.

“Guys, we’re in the timestream. I don’t think I can hold us here for long. The timestorm is already forming again,” said Sara.

“I guess I’m off the bench then,” said Jax. “Let’s get Rip back where he needs to be.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be fast enough, maybe we should try to wake Amaya?” suggested Ray, as he got to his feet, rubbing at his neck. He coughed a few times and had to lean against the bench. Normally, Jax would suggest that he went to medbay, but there just wasn’t time.

Martin and Jax lifted Rip up by the shoulders and got him back into the chair, snapping the medical cuff around his wrist to make the final connection directly to his skin.

“Do I want to know how Evil Rip got the drop on you?” asked Jax.

“We thought he was our Rip, and unconscious,” said Martin, as he rechecked the connections for a final time, “none of us noticed that he’d jumped again until he hit Amaya with a wrench.”

“Are we ready?” asked Ray, still leaning against the bench but now with his hand by the switch.

“You need to grab this cable and pull when I tell you to,” said Martin. “Let’s hope that your football twitch reflexes are as good as ever.”

Jax nodded and positioned himself by the cable.

“Now,” said Martin, taking a step back.

Ray threw the switch, and all hell broke loose. A fork of lightning ran around the room twice and then down a cable and out across the hull, and hopefully out into the timestream. Sparks rained down from light fittings that failed spectacularly.

Meanwhile Rip was practically vibrating and appearing like an old flicker book of fashions. The black items of Evil Rip’s clothes vanished and were replace by an outfit that Jax had never seen Rip wear, torn jeans and a rock band shirt, then he was in a jumper with some kind of birds decorating it and the beard was gone from his suddenly youthful face, glasses perched on his nose. He cycled through period dress, Elizabethan tunic and breeches, a space suit, then salwar kameez, and back to his normal mode of dress but covered in blood, tears on his face. Jax went to touch him, because he seemed to need help, but Martin stopped him.

“Don’t, the energy will take any path it can, and we don’t want that to be through you,” said Martin. “Make sure you grab the cable by the insulation.”

Jax nodded again.

“Martin, I could use a hand here,” said Ray.

Martin went back over to the machine where Ray was flicking switches again. Jax wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, but it looked like that were rerouting the way that the energy left the ship so that it would discharge in different areas of the timestream and perhaps avoid another time storm forming.

Rip’s changes of state were slowing. There was a sharp suit with big lapels and hat, something that seemed to be Chinese, a pair of pyjamas, a toga and finally he was back in his own clothes, exactly as he’d been earlier in the day.

“That’s it,” said Martin, turning to Ray.

“The ship isn’t fully discharged,” said Ray, fiddling with one of the controls, “we need to give it another few seconds.”

“Didn’t you say we needed to pull the plug immediately?” said Jax, having to adjust his footing so that he could stay upright, as the ship shook.

Rip moaned in the chair, definitely in pain. A yellow light appeared to crawl over his body and then vanish.

“This isn’t good for him,” said Jax, with alarm.

“Pull it!” said Ray, finally.

Jax grabbed the cable and yanked it out of the socket, just as a wave of green energy seemed to be tracking back towards Rip down the wire. He’d spent years honing his reflexes as an athlete and they hadn’t deserted him. He was faster and the energy never reached its destination, receding back out into the timestream. He let out a sigh of relief.

“Gideon, tell Captain Lance to get us out of here before this ship shakes apart,” said Martin.

“I am doing so,” replied Gideon, tersely.

Jax felt the bump as the ship exited the timestream. Normally it was a smoother transition but the Waverider had been through a lot today. It was done. Now they just had to finish up the mountain of repairs and return a few dinosaurs to the Jurassic, easy.

***

Rip awoke with a headache that was easily the worst he’d ever experienced in his life. That probably explained why he was in medbay. Again. He drew in a deep breath and let it out.

“Gideon,” he murmured, “status and more painkillers, please.”

“Administering. The Waverider is currently back in Los Angeles and arrived without incident. The timeline has been stabilised, and all paradox energy has been dispersed, including your own. You are being treated for the damage done to your body by your constant time hopping. All indications are that you will be fully healed within twenty-four hours. Mr Jackson successfully completed the prototype of your new time travel device and the team are in the process of wrangling all the dinosaurs back to the Late Cretaceous period,” said Gideon.

Rip finally opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. The pain in his head was receding a little.

“Anyone injured?” he asked.

“Apart from you?” asked Sara, entering the medbay. “Gideon told me you were waking up and I was between dinosaur hunts. How are you feeling?”

“I have the headache to end all headaches, but Gideon tells me that I’m mending,” said Rip. “I have to ask, did my… worst side make an appearance?”

Sara folder her arms over her chest.

“Why are you so desperate to know whether you did something bad?” asked Sara. “You don’t have to beat yourself up all the time, Rip.”

“Sara, please, it isn’t about that. I need to know if I hurt anyone,” said Rip.

She gave him a very unimpressed look. Then she counted off on her fingers.

“In order, you were a teenager – polite, total nerd, very confused; Phil – also confused, American, mainly interested in telling his friend George about spaceships; an eight year old – hungry, scared, just taken in by the Time Masters and recovering from tuberculosis; thirty years older than you are now – married apparently, expected to be here and gave us a few tips without breaking the timeline; Evil you – you hit Amaya on the head with a wrench, choked Ray, threatened Martin and Jax stunned you. There, now you know everything. You will note that no one is in medbay because all the injuries sustained were minor, and once again, no one is holding it against you. Evil Rip is not you, he never was.”

Rip blinked at Sara. That was a lot to take in.

“At least everyone is okay,” he said. “Wait, I was married? How did you know?”

“You were wearing a wedding ring,” said Sara.

“A wedding ring? I’ve never worn mine…”

“I’m just telling you what I saw,” said Sara, her hands up in a defensive gesture.

“Time travel really is utterly infuriating sometimes,” said Rip, leaning his head back on the rest.

“And we’re just going to ignore the starving urchin that the Time Masters kidnapped. You had tuberculosis, Rip! They made you do tests when you were ill!”

“They cured my TB and as you know, my childhood wasn’t exactly traditional, but you have met my mother. I know that she at least always loved me, and cared for me,” said Rip. “Things could have been a great deal worse. I don’t need your pity, Sara. What I need is your help.”

“Help?” asked Sara.

“Yes, because this isn’t over. There are going to be more anachronisms and anomalies. If there’s one thing that all this has made me realise, it’s that we’re not enough. We can’t deal with all of this alone,” said Rip.

“What are you saying? You want a new Time Masters? We know how that ended last time,” said Sara.

Rip pushed himself up into a sitting position, a little stiffly and Gideon moved the couch to support him.

“We do it differently this time,” said Rip. “We don’t take orphans and indoctrinate them, like I was. We recruit people with skills that we know can help us, people like you and the Legends.”

“You recruited us because we didn’t matter to the timeline,” said Sara. “And you lied to us to do it.”

“Not my finest hour, but you also had untapped potential, and that’s what we need,” said Rip. He met Sara’s eyes. “You know that I’m right.”

She looked up briefly and nodded reluctantly.

“Okay, you’re right. So how does this work? We have one ship and there are eight of us,” said Sara.

“I’m not sure yet,” said Rip, “but I’m stuck in medbay for the next twenty-four hours. I have some time to mull things over.”

Sara scuffed her foot against the floor. “Well let me know what you come up with. Keep an eye on him, Gideon.”

“Always,” replied Gideon.

Sara left the medbay, probably to return to her dinosaur herding activities.

Rip leaned back in the chair and his expression changed.

“Gideon, close the door and lock it. I need everything that is in your database on an entity called Mallus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, and leaving comments and kudos. I cherish every one and will try to find time to reply to you all.


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